


Back in Ikebukuro

by MusicalMelody001



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Being Lost, Dramatic Introductions, F/M, Leading To A Plot At Some Point, Moving, No Sense of Direction, Shizuo Needs More Love, Shizuo Needs To Calm Down
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 12:36:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7315477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicalMelody001/pseuds/MusicalMelody001
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I wasn't a complete stranger to Ikebukuro. Even so, I had been gone for a while, and it seemed that in that time a lot had changed. While the streets might have been vaguely familiar, those who walked them were anything but. I knew that there was no way I could have ever forgotten about someone like him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

I wasn't a complete stranger to Ikebukuro. Well, I hadn't been here in years and was terrible at not getting lost in even  _ well known  _ environments, but still. I remembered a bit from my childhood. I had lived here for a good eight years, albeit out was my  _ first _ eight years, so the parts I used to frequent I more or less still remembered. Sort of.

I still had my penchant of getting... 'misplaced' to worry about. Who knew there was a maze in the middle of Ikebukuro Station?

"Mai! Mai!" A voice called, gathering lots of states and attention, as well as blatant glares. I turned towards the voice, seeing a familiar face.

After my family had moved from Ikebukuro, which eight-year-old me had  _ not _ been happy about, we moved to a quiet, small town in the middle of nowhere. It was boring. It was so small that the only thing fun to do was go to the movies or eat at the  _ one _ ice cream shop.

It got better over the years, with more restaurants and clothing stores, but it was still boring. Which was why, after graduating, I had decided to go back. To Ikebukuro, I mean.

"Mai! There you are! You were supposed to meet me near the north entrance." My brother chides, stopping in front of me.

"Ahhh... North? There's more than one exit?" I question, looking around confusedly.

He rolls his eyes. "Yes, and right now you're not headed towards any of them."

My older brother, Takumi, was really tall. I have no idea how, considering I was so short and that we were from the same gene pool. Either way, he had two years and more than a foot on me, and loved to rub it in when he could. He wasn't mean about it though, it was more of a teasing older sibling vibe. He mostly stuck to t-shirts, hoodies, and jeans, wearing his sneakers every day. His hair was darker than mine, and admittedly more tame, though all my attempts of figuring out how he managed to pull off such sorcery so far had failed. Despite the differences in age, gender, and interests, we seemed to get along pretty well.

"Come on, this way." Takumi said, grabbing my wrist and pulling me in the opposite direction. "I'll stop by one of the shops and buy you a map. You can get lost in a cardboard box."

I frowned. "I doubt it'll help that much... And that was only one time! It got jostled around a bunch and I couldn't remember which side was the opening!"

Takumi scoffed, smirking as he continued to lug me through the confusing station by my wrist. Soon we were outside, the morning sun almost blinding me after so long. I turned to my brother, only to see him smirking at me from beneath his sunglasses.

We made our way to his apartment, him leaving me to deal with all my bags. "So," I ventured, "How's life back in Ikebukuro?"

After graduating high school, my brother had gotten a job back in the city. I wasn't entirely sure what he did, just that it had to do with computers and it was super complicated the one time he tried explaining it to me. After high school, I was determined to go to college like my mom always talked about. My brother said it was kind of stupid to spend so much money to get a 'useless degree in the language we already spoke'. Either way, he was nothing if not full of opinions, and I enjoyed books rather much. Not that he  _ didn't, _ at first he read more than me, but his forte was tech where as mine was not. Not that I didn't have some mean skills on the computer when I wanted to. I just couldn't take one apart blindfolded, pick up a random piece and tell you what it did. It's a wonder how he wasn't short any screws when he put it back together.

"Not too bad," He said, still pulling me along as he crossed the street. "Everything is pretty much the same, although it's a bit more interesting now."

I hummed, nodding my head as we got to his apartment building, struggling to balance my bags with one hand as we got into the elevator. Once inside his apartment, I dropped my bags on the floor as soon as I could, letting out a sigh as relief flowed through my sore muscles. "As much as I love traveling, it gets so tiring."

My brother grabbed some chips from the kitchen, already digging in as he shot me a question. "So, how long are you staying here?"

I sat on his couch, stretching my neck as I replied. "Gee, I'm feeling the love. Not too long, I just need to find a place and a job."

"Oh, so forever, then?" He joked, his voice slightly muffled from all the chips in his mouth.

I scoffed playfully. “Like I’d want to stay here with you.” Looking around, his apartment wasn’t that bad. It was relatively clean, at least what I could see, and he had a lot of games. I mean _a_ _lot_. Sure - the floor was carpet, the couch matched the curtains, and the coffee table was centered perfectly - but the main focus of that room was clearly the large number of game consoles, disks and controllers. The room wasn’t too small, but you could tell he really only used it for one thing.

Hungry, I got up and made my way into the kitchen to browse through the pantry. When I got there it was almost completely empty, if you didn’t count the various cans of different types of soup, chili, and bags of chips. Oh, and lots of desserts in the form of brownies, chocolate cookies, chocolate bars, chocolate chips, and various other treats consisting of the said bean. Not that I didn’t love chocolate, but this was getting ridiculous. “Oh, by the way,” Takumi chimed, making his way to his room, “It’s your turn to make dinner tonight!”.


	2. Chapter 2

My brother had work today since he took yesterday off to meet me at the station, so he had left earlier in the morning than I would have liked to wake up. Before he left, he pulled me off the couch - actually pulled, by my feet - and threw a map at my face. My gift was paired with his parting words, saying he would be back late in the afternoon. I sat on the floor for a few minutes, before getting up, folding the blanket I was using and placing it on the couch next to my pillow. I shuffled to the kitchen, looking around for some breakfast to find that his eating habits were worse than I had thought. Not only was his pantry nearly bare, his fridge only had a gallon of milk, a box of leftover takeout, a bowl of leftover soup from last night, and - you guessed it - more chocolate. Once can not simply live off of soup and chocolate alone! (Plus, I really hated soup. There were a couple that were fine, but I still wasn’t that big of a fan and would only eat it occasionally.) Taking a piece of paper from my bag, also taking note that he didn’t have shopping lists, I started to write down some necessities.

I also took the opportunity to take a shower while he was gone, getting dressed and grabbing my purse with the new list and map in hand. I would find a grocery store, get the stuff on my list, and come back  _ without _ getting lost. Then Takumi couldn’t make fun of me. That was the plan, at least. I grabbed the spare key Takumi had actually remembered to make for me, thankful I wouldn’t have to suffer being locked out of my temporary residence.

Stepping out of the apartment building, I took a deep breath. I had missed the city. Somehow, without my noticing, I had even had trouble breathing the air in my old town. Now I felt my lungs fully expand, reacquainting themselves with their new yet familiar surroundings, much as I was about to do. I looked both ways, deciding that I should turn to the left in my quest for groceries, trying to memorize how to get back. It had taken me a little while, taking random turns when I got the urge, seeing as sometimes my ‘intuition’ was correct.

I did not find a grocery store.

After half an hour, I stopped, and finally took out my map. Looking around for the street name, I found the matching words on the paper, gauging how far away it was from the little circle that said “APARTMENT!” next to it in my brother’s handwriting. Finally deciding that I had to go South, I folded the map back up… more or less… eh, it wasn’t like he needed it anyway.

Determined to go back to my place of origin and find a grocery store on the way, I turned left. I hadn’t gotten that far before a person was suddenly falling not two feet in front of me. I yelped, jumping back a bit before looking back where he had come from. I only saw a giant mass of people before a blond man in some nice clothes stepped into the middle of the street. First I wondered why he wasn’t using a cross-walk and if jaywalking was still considered illegal if there wasn’t any cars on the road when the guy on the ground started to sit up, looking at the blonde with wide eyes and scrambled to back away.

_ There’s no way he could have thrown him that far. _ I thought, looking back and forth between them.

That of course, was replaced with incredulity when the blonde guy suddenly screamed. “You’re pissing me off!”

I scoffed, thinking this guy should calm his butt down and get out of the freaking street when he suddenly turned around, going straight for the intersection.  _ What’s wrong with this guy? _

I had reached my limit, it seemed, when he pulled a stop sign right out of the ground with one hand.

“Okay, I’m  _ so _ calling bullshit!” My voice rang out, having completely bypassed all of my mental filters, slightly echoing off the sidewalk and various buildings causing the blonde to look at me and scowl. I suddenly felt a sense of intimidation, before hearing the sounds of the guy next to me scrape to his feet and start running away. Blondie’s attention shifted, then he gave some sort of battle cry before chasing the guy around the corner and down another street.

“The  _ fuck _ did Takumi put in my soup?” I asked myself in a harsh half-whisper, before shaking my head and going down a  _ different _ street than the nicely dressed, attractive hallucination and continuing with my day.

I wandered a bit before looking up, assessing my surroundings only to stop once again. “How the heck did I go in a  _ circle?! _ ”

An hour later and I was still lost. Thankfully I had not hallucinated again, but I was getting sort of fed up with this maze of a city. Luckily there was a convenience store to my right, so I went inside for a snack to calm down... and maybe get some directions.


End file.
